The Warren Cup: homoerotic love and symposial rhetoric in silver

individual of the most exquisite works of toreutic art to have been created in the early Roman Imperial period is a silver ovoid scyphus,(1) or drinking utensil approximately 6 inches (15 centimeters) high, known as the Warren bowl [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURES 1-9 OMITTED], so-named for the American collector Edward Perry Warren, who originally acquired it in the early twentieth century(2) Previously upon loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in of recent origin York, the Warren Cup is now in the Stanford Place Collection in Oxford, England. Although this Roman scyphus is said to be from the hellenic East or Pompeii, its real provenance is unknown.(3) In workmanship, it certainly surpasses many other figural silver chalices of the early Imperial period. Like greatest in quantity other drinking vessels of this sort,(4) the Warren goblet once had ring handles attached to the opposite sides of its rim [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURES 3 4 OMITTED]. These handles divided the cup's figural reliefs into sum of two units separate scenes, designated side A [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED] and side B [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED]. Just below the rim of the goblet is a narrow margin, probably one time decorated with a gilded pattern.(5)

The Warren beaker is remarkable especially for its representation of sum of two units homoerotic scenes, each featuring an older idealized male "pedicating" (that is, anally penetrating)(6) a younger male. Unlike sights of heterosexual intercourse, those of a homoerotic nature are relatively unwonted in Roman art,(7) with the Warren chalice providing the only known representation of homosexual copulation in the medium of decorative Roman silver. Its uniqueness in this esteem has added to the suspicion that the beaker may not be an authentic work of ancient art. However, neither its form nor its imagery insinuates that the cup is anything on the contrary genuine.(8) Furthermore, certain details would be inexplicable if the bowl were not authentic.(9) It is also worth noting that although pageants of males anally penetrating other males are occasionally ground in various media in Roman art,(10) anal penetration of a younger male by means of an older male lover is true rarely, if at all, depicted in of greece art. In the considerable material substance of visual representations of pederastic activities in of greece vase painting, the ideal form of homosexual sex was intercrural, or copulating between the legs(11) Anal intercourse between sum of two units Greek males was considered demeaning and a form of subjugation that violated the social etiquette established for pederastic have affection for Since the norm for Roman homosexual lovemaking(12) was between a dominant Roman male and a passive slave, or noncitizen, anal intercourse was more popularly practiced in Roman culture(13) In this regard the homoerotic scenes on the Warren goblet are typically Roman rather than hellenic in character.

As for related artistic media, homosexual symplegmata, or representations of sexual intercourse, are sometimes fix in early Imperial terra-cotta drinking utensils commonly known as terra sigillata, or Arretine relief ware.(14) Heterosexual lovemaking representations as well as a variety of other make subordinates are also represented in this medium.(15) This mass-produced Arretine clay ware which was especially popular from about 30-25 BCE to 40 CE has generally been taken to be a "poor man's" version of expensive vessels in precious metals that had themselves inspired the production of their terra-cotta counterparts.(16) Our evidence for Roman drinking scyphi in similar precious metals as silver derives from not alone the extant objects themselves on the other hand also representations of such utensils in various media, including ancient wall paintings.(17) single painting from Pompeii, in particular, present to views three slave boys of different ages at a banquet, with the oldest slave boy extending what is clearly a scyphus in silver to single of the guests.(18)

The Warren chalice demands close attention because of not solitary the high quality and rareness of its make subordinate matter but also its omit in the scholarly literature until quite recently(19) Although this utensil had been known for a lengthy time and mentioned briefly before, it was not until an of the best article by John Clarke in the Art Bulletin in 1993 that the chalice received any detailed analysis.(20) The reasons for this lack of attention are quite clear: the inability of novel society - not to mention earlier twentieth-century scholarship - to deal with make subordinates of a homosexual or homoerotic nature.(21) smooth museums that were offered the beaker in the 1950s would not purchase it because of what they considered its ribald subject matter.(22) This negative attitude with regard to its graphic homoerotic nature may have l more [i]or[/i] less - consciously or subconsciously - to exclude the cup as an authentic work of ancient art.(23)

Clarke's 1993 article upon the Warren Cup marks an important point of departure for understanding the nature of homoerotic sights as well as the social dynamics mirrored in such an artifact. Although there are a number of points upon which I would be inclined to agree with Clarke, I shall advance a somewhat different interpretation of the shows on the Warren Cup and focus upon a number of aspects of it dealt with either partly or not at all by the agency of him or the few others who have discussed the goblet in a considerably less thorough way. From a number of other surviving examples, of that kind as the so-called Menander Treasure from the House of Menander at Pompeii(24) and the famous Boscoreale Treasure from near Pompeii,(25) we know that of the like kind silver drinking cups with the couple figural and decorative scenes were created in pairs and that these pairs were thematically related.(26) Consequently we can be fairly certain that the Warren bowl too, once had a mate. However, no single to my knowledge has at any time mentioned this possibility. Despite the fact that we are obviously limited in what we can say about this absent mate, I shall present a few suggestions about not alone its possible subject matter on the other hand also its correlative function.